She’d written him, but she hadn’t written him enough, and she knew that. She hadn’t written him enough because deep down she knew that it had to be physically impossible to actually be able to write him enough, to write him as much as he deserved to be written. And so, she hadn’t written him as much as she could have and most likely should have.
But she had written him, so that had to count for something or whatever, right?
The best postcard that she’d written him, of course, the one that trumped all the post cards that had come before it (which was zero, but that’s not the point) or after it (which wouldn’t be enough, as we already discussed). It was the very first postcard that she’d sent him, but it was far from a response to the very first postcard, or letter, or email, or text, or anything, really, that he’d sent her.
He’d written her a lot. He’d written her much, much more than she deserved – and that wasn’t just because of the fact that Eleanor often attached this certain stigma onto herself and her self-worth that she wasn’t that deserving or worthy of much of anything. That wasn’t why she felt she didn’t deserve all of the things that Park had sent her. She didn’t deserve the things that Park had sent her because she didn’t deserve them. Just like that. Plain and simple.
She had never read anything that he wrote her. She’d never opened a single package or card or letter. Her uncle always gave her confused looks when he saw her take the letters for her he’d bring in from the mailbox only to see her stick them in an old Chuck Taylors box along with all the others.
When she finally wrote him, when she finally accepted the fact that Park deserved something (because he did), she grabbed a postcard from a Shell station she’d stopped at with her uncle. She’d picked it off one of those rotating racks that was covered top to bottom in various postcards, deciding on one that read, “Greetings from the Land of 10,000 Lakes!” and in her scratchy scrawl, she’d only written one thing. She’d only written three words.
You can likely guess what those three words were without her having to spit them out all over again, right?
That was what she’d sent him.
After that, she eased up a little on reading his letters. She couldn’t bring herself to call him on the phone or anything, since talking to him on the phone had pretty much always insured her impending death, but she did sometimes write to him about how much she missed him, and the ways she missed him, what she wished she could do if they were both in the same place.
I mean, she never really said all the things she missed about him, because that was one of the things she’d never really been able to tell him in the first place. Granted, she’d never really needed to tell him, or anything, because Park just always sort of figured it out on his own – but that didn’t change the fact that it scared her, that it worried her that if he ever knew just how much she needed him, or wanted him, or missed him, or especially loved him, he would run scared. He would never look back.
And it was bullshit, of course, because she did know Park well enough to know that that would not happen – but that didn’t change the fact that it worried her that it just might. You couldn’t really shake a fear like that when you’d spent your whole life engraining it into yourself.
And right now, after all this time, after all the shit she’d been through and all the shit he’d been through and all the shit they’d been through – he was here. And that was something she hadn’t let herself register right away.
Initially, she’d told herself it wasn’t really him, even if she kind of knew it had to be. She knew he was in New York, after all, as she did listen to his radio show every weeknight, and she checked out his blog all the time to the point that it was listed as her top visited site whenever she opened a new tab on Chrome.
But… but here. On a fucking subway. On Christmas Eve.
That was something that she had convinced herself was not legitimately happening.
Until she heard him say her name, at least, and then she knew that what she thought was happening was, in fact, really happening.
She considered pretending that she didn’t hear him, even though she could feel his eyes burning a hole into her head, burning into every part of her until her cheeks were warm and the tips of her ears under the flaps of her hat were bright pink, she could feel it.
That was the thing about Park Sheridan. She could always feel him.
And she knew him enough to know that if she didn’t answer, he wouldn’t take it as her not really being, you know, herself. Sure, maybe she’d slimmed down a little, and maybe she’d gotten a bit more fashion savvy… but she was still unmistakably her, and if anybody knew who she was, it was obviously the one person who’d always been able to see right into her when nobody else even bothered to take a look.
So, with her heart beating heavily and erratically in her chest, she lifted her head, looked right back at him.
He was a little older, but he was the same. He was still him, and she felt like she was being brought right back to a school bus, like, ten years before. Just like that. Just by the sight of him sitting a seats across from her.
“Holy shit,” she finally managed to say, even though that was definitely not a thing like what she’d planned to say in her head. Her lips rubbed together for a moment, and her gaze stayed fixed on him for a moment or two longer before she found the courage to talk again.
“You’re here,” she added on, swallowing down a lot of unsaid words before managing up a few more. “Like… on-a-subway-in-New-York-on-Christmas-Eve here.”
A true wordsmith, really.
She managed a nervous smile, and then she said, “Hi.”
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